New car came without DAB radio but should've had it

BeenThroughItAll

bigjl wrote: »

DAB Radio quality was exceptional in the Range Rovers I was driving last year.

Perhaps it depends on the quality of the rest of the system?

The ones I drove were an Autobiogrpahy Sport with the top end system and a mode range full fat Range that was brand new and part of the vehicles on standby for the RWC 2015.

I drove a few XJL's with DAB, mine never had it, provided by the Chauffeur Plan and they all knocked spots off mine which only had the 250w low end system.

Maybe the quality of DAB radio transmissions is better in London and the South East?

Yeah, Southern ones and zeroes are higher specification.

neilmcl

bigjl wrote: »

DAB Radio quality was exceptional in the Range Rovers I was driving last year.

Perhaps it depends on the quality of the rest of the system?

Not really. If it's a low bitrate signal, which most of the stations are then doesn't matter how good your system is. It can't improve what's not there in the first place.

Phileas_Fog

I have a 206 ( First Car ) and would like a cheap radio to play this and that with, mp3 bluetooth. Would you people be able to recommend a radio which has quite a few features for a low price please ? Are the unnamed brands on ebay worth buying ?

molerat

neilmcl wrote: »

Not really. If it's a low bitrate signal, which most of the stations are then doesn't matter how good your system is. It can't improve what's not there in the first place.

Absolutely.
Some stations are as low as 64 kbit/s and many are in mono - cheap mp3 territory.

Earlier this month I did a long journey and pretty much gave up with the DAB because of the dropouts. Many stations do not transit between regions / transmitters and the only fairly reliable ones were the BBC nationals, the other supposed "nationals" simply were not. BBC on FM came to the rescue of my sanity. In fact DAB in a car could be a dangerous distraction due to having to constantly retune.

neilmcl

Not even mp3, they're broadcast in the much inferior mp2 codec afaik.

shaun_from_Africa

DAB transmissions are superior to FM when it comes to background noise (or hiss) but due to the low transmission rate, the actual sound quality will rarely be as good as a clear FM signal irrespective of the quality of receiver you have.

facade

Phileas_Fog wrote: »

I have a 206 ( First Car ) and would like a cheap radio to play this and that with, mp3 bluetooth. Would you people be able to recommend a radio which has quite a few features for a low price please ? Are the unnamed brands on ebay worth buying ?

Don't buy the unnamed ones, they break quickly, and no-one knows how to get the bluetooth working.

I quite like Sony, try something like
Sony DSX-A400BT



About £80, anything with a brand you have heard of really, even the Technica ones Aldi sell are better than the no-name stuff.

BeenThroughItAll

facade wrote: »

Don't buy the unnamed ones, they break quickly, and no-one knows how to get the bluetooth working.

I quite like Sony, try something like
Sony DSX-A400BT



About £80, anything with a brand you have heard of really, even the Technica ones Aldi sell are better than the no-name stuff.

Aye. I had an Aldi unit a couple of years back. Had the top off it on one occasion and the PCB carried a Blaupunkt code...

DUTR

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

DAB transmissions are superior to FM when it comes to background noise (or hiss) but due to the low transmission rate, the actual sound quality will rarely be as good as a clear FM signal irrespective of the quality of receiver you have.

True, luckily for me, I like jazz FM, which is on DAB+ and uses AAC coding, the other stations like talksport that would be on AM , then dab just about beats AM.

photome

wonder if the OP has it sorted